"How is this possible?" he demanded. "Look at them. Look at us."
She struggled to understand what he was suggesting.
"They're our children," she told him. "All five of them."
He stepped backward.
"No. That can't be true."
Her exhaustion suddenly seemed to vanish beneath a wave of panic.
"What are you saying?"
He looked at the babies again, then back at her.
"You betrayed me."
The accusation struck harder than anything she had experienced during her pregnancy.
She tried to explain, but he would not listen.
There was no evidence of infidelity. No confession. No conversation about the complexity of inherited physical traits.
There was only his immediate assumption that the babies' appearance meant their mother had been unfaithful.
And that assumption became, in his mind, an unquestionable fact.